Hello again, Gene Cranston

It's hard to believe I've only officially owned Gene for 11 days now, as I've had about two years worth of maintenance trouble with him so far -- but that's in Betty-years, which are unfair to apply to another car, and heck, I knew anything I got for $1000 was going to need about that much more done in maintenance.

P.C. and I picked him up from my Ron at the last minute Monday, and Ron told me to drive and drive and drive -- and put good gasoline in -- and drive and drive some more. Since the transmission was sticky and my Ron hadn't flushed it yet, we drove and drove to a Thai restaurant (where I had the second best panang curry I've had in the States) in Less-local City, CT, and then retired Gene once again to P.C.'s Ron for a transmission flush yesterday. P.C. agreed to drop me off at work last night and drive and drive to see his friend in Far Away City, CT, and then pick me up again this morning before the re-test.

The trouble is I'm pretty sure Gene doesn't get infinite chances on retesting, and in order to get a waiver, I have to spend $660 trying to fix the problem. I've got about $400 to go on the exhaust troubles, if it comes to that.

I'll let you know if it comes to that. Gene has two more days to get registered for realz before his temporary reg expires.

PSA: Un-satirizable events have again occurred.

So I thought the Apocalypse was nigh after our former V.P. shot his friend in the face (and didn't tell us about it for awhile, and the news outlets thought the cover-up was the problem) -- but when the world didn't end, or at least didn't end quickly, I let down my guard and thought "well, at least there aren't any other news stories that can't possibly be made sillier by Jon-Stewart-types."

Until recently, when, in a stroke of genius that sounds like it came straight out of Stargate (the movie, not the series), BP announced that it was going to lower a cement dome over the oil leak.

It turns out that this plan was less silly than it sounded, since the dome would have sucked up much of the oil through a pipe rather than just clamping it down, but it worked just about as well as you'd expect that plan to work, not knowing the highly technical details involved.

Can't they submit these plans to some kind of eight-year-old test? That is, to first ask an eight-year-old whether it sounds like a good plan or a silly one? In my experience, eight year olds are excellent judges of various shades of silliness, and at a minimum could help BP figure out how to spin this thing in the news properly.

Just off the top of my head, for instance, if the leak never stops, the company could present itself as philanthropic: most of the people in the South are poor, and here comes BP, providing them all with free oil. Now all they have to do is go pick it up and figure out how to refine it. In the meantime, the prices will go up for all the northern rich people.

Their new slogan could be "BP: Like Robin Hood for gasoline -- delivering crude oil to the Gulf Coast for free since 2010."

New word: Blehthargy

n. that combination of boredom and slow-moving laziness that comes from an immediately preceding feeling of boredom and laziness; complex, compounded boredom leading to unexplained tiredness; boredom that has folded in on itself, as a samurai sword is folded for greater strength.

Local Trivia: Roomie Reunion 2010

This weekend marks the earliest RR ever, after last year's latest ever. It was a good weekend, only made more epic by The Three Plagues, as Debbie called them -- of the neverending hike, the unkillable ticks and the overflowing toilet waters.

Long live the roomies.

PSA: Take a dive, dammit.

Well, Lookin' at Lucky won the Preakness, making it another year without a Triple Crown. A few years ago, a commentator commentated that if we don't have another Triple Crown winner soon, horse racing will lose all its fans and fail to gain new ones -- and I agree.

With War Admiral turned into dog food after an unfortunate leg-breaking incident, and no one outside the OTB able to remember any horse that's come after, I say it's time to go "Quiz Show" on this sport and get us a winner -- and if we can't get an attractive, come-from-behind horse to win legally, let's get one to win illegally.

Of course this would piss off the inveterate gamblers, who seem to be the base of fans this sport retains, but it would also shake up the numbers for awhile and get people back in Derby seats with their hats and juleps, regular (rich) fans who make this sport more like fox-hunting (socially acceptable because white British men do it) and less like dog-fighting (so socially unacceptable it can send a black man to jail -- not that that's any feat in itself).

Not that those hat-wearing, julep-sipping Derby fans aren't out there, but that I used to want to be one, and now I don't.

Give us a Triple Crown, guys, come on. Take one for the team.

PSA: Maaaad Men

If you haven't been watching Mad Men -- though if you're white, you may have already thrown a themed party in its honor -- you should start now.

The end of season 3 is more promising a beginning than I've seen for most shows out there (when they actually are beginning). I won't give anything away (so this will be a short post), but the energy and momentum in "Shut the Door, Have a Seat" is better than almost anything I've seen since the Aaron-Sorkin seasons of West Wing and more balanced than regular-cliffhanger series like Alias.

PSA: "You'll always learn something when we meet you at the school"

"Too cool for school" 21 Jump Street has been on my mind and in my DVD player a lot lately, thanks to my newfound freedom from writing 20-page final papers. Today I finished season one.

In addition to the theme song instantly getting stuck in my head, the first thing I noticed was how racist a show it is/was. The very first scene in the very first episode features a nice, suburban (white) family sitting around the dinner table beginning to discuss their days, the precocious teenage daughter acting up just a little for realism -- until the scene is shattered by two black men jumping through the window near the dinner table brandishing automatic weapons and Michael-Jackson-like hairdos and clothing.

Not racist enough, you say? Well, in a later episode, a local high school gets taken over by a gang full (I mean 100%) of "ethnic" kids -- black, hispanic, asian -- who hold a bunch of middle-class white people hostage. They're also kind of bumbling as criminals, clearly not having thought through the master plan (the way I'm sure a white villain would have), and the main (black) leader's weakness for beautiful women and inability to think rationally is highlighted several times. They also have the Asian cop, Ioki (whose real-life family name is Nguyen [Vietnamese], but who was cast as Japanese), run up the outside of the building like a ninja. Then he beats up the other Asian in the episode.

All this makes it less of a shock when they suddenly kill off the (white) hippie captain midway through the season and substitute a hard-working black captain in his place. Obviously some other people thought the show was racist, too.

Episodes feature the guy who plays that alien who idolizes Alan Rickman's character in Galaxy Quest, and dies; Jason Priestley as a squatter-punk kid; and later, Shannon Doherty and Brad Pitt. Also, Holly Robinson-Peete, who is currently best known for her advocacy of autism research on Celebrity Apprentice, but who you also probably saw at some point as Vanessa on Hangin' With Mr. Cooper on ABC's TGIF lineup.

One of the things that's great about the show -- besides Johnny Depp's debut and seeing him trying on 80's-punk outfits that would later be dwarfed by all his Tim Burton projects and even Captain-Jack garb -- is seeing 80's culture in action. In one episode, the (black) captain's son comes to visit and is a Rastafarian, something totally foreign to me now (though even I knew the captain shouldn't eat those brownies); the captain slowly learns tolerance of his son's new ways. The season closer also features an 80's punk-anarchy scene that seems thoroughly entrenched in its time -- basically good kids getting mixed up with punk-rock and getting a second chance, rather than getting detained as potential domestic terrorists and feared by all in the community.

It's definitely a pre-9/11, pre-Berlin-wall-fall, pre-Lost world. Even though I lived in it, it's fascinating to watch now.

You can get seasons 1-2 and 3-4 in bundle packs from Target right now for $15 apiece. Millstone Entertainment (which produced 21 Jump Street and also put out Daybreak and the old-tyme spy-show sampler "Spies and Lies," which includes 6 Dangerous Assignment episodes) is becoming one of my companies to watch.

Hello Gene Cranston.

I've purchased a new old car, the '94 Volvo wagon (teal) I blogged about lo these many days ago. P.C. suggested after our first viewing that it could be named "Gene," a suggestion I took under advisement and finally agreed to after adding "Cranston," a 30 Rock reference that I love.

("Cranston, why won't Kenneth call me back?...Cranston, why are you crying?")

This doesn't mean I've given up the ghost on Betty, who I'd keep in my grandmother's military-issue footlocker heirloom trunk if I could. I'm going to have her towed to my mom's driveway and consider my options from there. While a used transmission with installation might run me $800-900, the rental car I'm getting for this weekend and next just while Gene gets his wheels (and CT registration) under him -- and for traveling to RR '10 -- will cost about a third of that, and from what I hear, Gene may spend more time in the shop than Betty when he needs fixing, as my mechanic says Volvos are harder to diagnose.

Good old Betty. Always knew what was wrong, always got her fixed without trouble.

In an ideal world, Betty and Gene would last me into the next decade. We'll see what the fallen world will get me.

Also, P.C. says he's willing to paint Gene orange if I want. We'll see how he runs first, but that seems pretty promising.

Local Trivia: Friend Liz describes the sound P.C.'s car's back wheel is making

Liz: "It was like an acorn fell on the roof. But then there weren't any trees, and the acorn would have had to be made out of a brick."

Bye Bye Betty?

Well, last week, on the last trip down to CT from Waltham, Betty gave out.

She crossed the border into Connecticut, but didn't make it much farther before what mechanics tell me is her transmission began to make clanking and grinding sounds. She rolls, but it sounds like parts have come loose and are rattling around inside.

So now I've had a week to decide what to do -- get her a new trans or get a new car. Either one is a risk, and my mechanic isn't in favor of ANYthing I can do within my budget ("I wouldn't recommend putting that money into a car that old"; "I wouldn't get a European car, they cost twice as much to maintain"; "no, you're NOT going to find a car with low miles on it for that price").

Betty's blue book value is less than $700, though her value in my heart is much higher. (AWWWW.) A trans rebuild would run about $1800. But her engine is Toyota from her year (1990), which is a great engine in general, and she's only got 130K on her, 60K of which I put on her over the past three years.

I also went to look at a Volvo wagon this morning, which looked pretty spectacular as far as caralities* go. But it had two leaks, making it a risky deal. Buying it would be less than bringing Betty back, but the maintenance might add up to even.

Course, then I'd have two risky cars to choose from...and possibly two broken ones.

Also, this is finals week.

*car personalities

PSA: Another reason not to waste your time in Times Square

Wow. Car bomb, eh?

I take this as yet another sign that driving probably shouldn't be allowed in NYC.

Response to comment: Celebs cut their hair!!

I'm posting this here because I wrote a really long response in the comments, which I then lost. But I'd also like to hear what other people think about patriarchy. (I'm assuming this is okay with you, Ben, but let me know if not and I'll repost in comments.)

Here's Ben's comment:

"At the risk of being a dissenting voice, I think the notion of patriarchy making you read fashion magazines is a little...well, I mean, I barely know who those people were, so it's got to be something more specific to you.

And, to take the other side, no, I don't feel compelled to read politics magazines either. Whatever is going on with respect to women and fashion these days, I'm going to hazard that they are in some ways as responsible for it as men are for the travesty that is politics.

I was listening to two female critics talk about actresses, and whether or not they've had plastic surgery, and they said, "but we all have that moment that takes us out of the film, when we're like 'yeah, but what about her hair' or whatever. And I thought, "No, no that's just you." Because, honestly, I've just never, ever thought of it. Maybe that (some?) women have that moment is a patriarchal one, but I don't see the male gaze or what have you within that moment itself.

just not our thing, sorry"

***

Well, that's fair enough, I suppose, as an "I don't jive with that" response.

Except that the equation of you (an individual) with patriarchy (a hierarchical social system) doesn't jive. And I never accused men of knowing who female celebs are -- in fact, I'd expect them/you not to, if what I'm saying is at all accurate.

Men have the option of not knowing in a patriarchal culture; white men have the option of not knowing anything at all. (I don't believe you've taken this route, Ben, but some have.) Being a white man is being normal, invisible, individually powerful. White middle-class people (again, I'm not accusing anyone of being middle-class) are the ones who get to talk about individual responsibility, because a straight, white middle-class man is "normal," meaning his privilege is made invisible -- and talking about laziness or oversensitivity or individual responsibility of marginalized groups is a way to keep that privilege invisible.

It's not that we're racist -- it's that they're lazy! It's not that women are reacting to us or the society we've historically presided over, it's that they LIKE to dress up in pretty things and wear high heels and make up! They like paying attention to hair -- it's why they do it! People on welfare are taking advantage of us and need to be stopped! Black people are better at sports and talk funny!

It's only because we have "men's" bathrooms and "women's" bathrooms, not "transsexual" bathrooms! We're not prejudiced, it's just how the system IS.

And there's where I think the male gaze can be seen clearly, even for the ones doing the looking. By "male gaze," I don't mean individual men's eyes looking anymore than Freud meant individual penises when he wrote about the phallus. Women are complicit in the "male gaze," too, and certainly to the extent that we're explicitly policing each other's hairstyles in celeb magazines. But just because it's equal-opportunity-cisgendered heteronormativizing doesn't mean it isn't patriarchy.

If we were free of gender policing, of the kind of heternormative patriarchy that Marxists claimed was inevitable thanks to the capitalist system, we wouldn't make life a living hell for so many transgender people.

The only reason it's set up this way is the "normalness" and invisibility of the white middle class (in modern capitalism). Only in this kind of society could Freud propose such a bizarre system of family alliances that rely on a certain familial structure (two parents, for instance), a certain middle-class hierarchy (dad possesses the phallus, always), a certain middle-class neurosis (power over nurturing or any other covetable value), and find acceptance. When you remove any of those elements, psychoanalysis falls apart -- in fun ways, but completely.

It may be helpful to note here that anthropologists have linked the beginning of women's fashion to the beginning of capitalism: male capitalists, who had power, stopped peacocking around like they'd done during Henry VIII's time and instead showed their wealth through how their women dressed. Men adorned women, more or less, to indicate their wealth to other men -- women were actually dressed to be looked at by other men. The male gaze is absolutely present, and appropriative of women's bodies, in that moment. How could it not be present in all the moments based on that?

Are women not looking at themselves with the same evaluative gaze when they adorn themselves, now? Are women not in the process of evaluating themselves and each other through the imaginary, appropriative stare of those men? Doesn't it seem possible, even likely, that women have merely internalized the male gaze?

Perhaps we've moved beyond this history into something new. I mention consumer culture for no small reason in my original post -- I'm willing to blame capitalism rather than men. But if we have moved on, it's strange that we're doing the same things.

Women are socialized differently, to think about haircuts, to notice dirt and feel the need to clean it up, etc. It's true that women police each other in these things more than men do. But it's certainly not true when men claim "it doesn't matter to me -- it doesn't matter." A man who doesn't need to think about haircuts or the need to clean up after himself is a man with privilege. Such a man is living in a world where women think about their haircuts in relation to how beautiful they can be for their romantic partners, and who have a felt need to do the cleaning necessary for sanitary living. For some reason, these women are reduced by the same society to begging for haircut compliments and nagging about the laundry and the dishes, because that's the vocabulary and power offered to them. The only other option for these haircut-and-dirt-noticing women is to try to stop noticing -- in which case they may still be policed and punished as "not feminine enough" or told they will "never get a man."

But again, all this pales in comparison to the way the whole system comes crashing down on people who, for individual or spiritual or practical reasons choose to define themselves outside of the gender binary entirely. And that's IF we let them define themselves -- in which case, we still pathologize them and then make them (you know, for legal reasons) choose from between "male" or "female."

We've made some progress, such that not all transgender individuals are left jobless and homeless by a vitriolic prejudice, but we're certainly not beyond the "male gaze" yet. Not by a long shot.